Toshiba’s made a new robot that can use sign language

Toshiba has invented a robot that looks like a human and can communicate using simple gestures (like waving) and sign language. And the good news is, it’s not creepy in the slightest. Just kidding: it’s pretty creepy. The company says it’s designed to look like “a friendly young woman”, complete with a face that blinks and smiles, although the blank expression is more than a little Stepford Wives.

But the goal isn’t to freak people out or to replace traditionally female jobs with a robot army of shebots (at least, not yet). The idea is that it could eventually have healthcare applications, for example by allowing people with hearing difficulties to communicate with medical staff, or acting as a companion for people with dementia.

Toshiba plans to add its existing sensing and speech recognition technology to future models, and expects to have a fully-functional version by 2020. Which gives us all plenty of time to get used to the idea of chatting to robots instead of actual people (who knows? Maybe it’ll even be an improvement). In the meantime, if you’d like to see it/her in action, they’ve posted a video on YouTube (but maybe don’t watch it just before bed).